Weight Watcher's Diaries Seventeen
By Carol Daelemans

"The Wedding"

My sister-in-law is getting married. For most people this would mean a whole lot of dieting to fit into the "perfect dress." Why do women do that? Don't even try to deny it. We all do it. You can't tell me you haven't at least said you intended to lose a few pounds before such an occasion and then hung up the phone and eaten a half a pint of Ben & Jerry's from the stress of it all.

Men never, ever say they're going to diet in order to fit into their suits. Wouldn't you fall over dead if you heard some guy say that? Their clothes are cleverly designed to hide their bodies. The sport coat effectively covers their waist and their butt. Why didn't we think of that?

For once, the perfect fit is actually not my problem. Both of my little darling girls are going to be in the wedding. They will both be in flowing off-white gowns. The littlest will have a crown of flowers in her curly locks. The oldest will spend the morning at the hair dresser along with the other ladies getting "gussied up" before she takes the limousine to the ceremony. I feel safe in the knowledge that absolutely no one will look twice at me. If they do, I haven't seen most of them since I dropped these 25-30 pounds so I will still look good.

The dress I am thinking of wearing is one that I bought in the early days of weight loss. This was about 15 pounds ago. Do you think it might actually be too big??? Ha! Wouldn't that be a hoot?! I'm putting off trying it on just to make the suspense (and the likelihood that it is too big) last longer. It would be so nice to have to go to the tailor and say, "Could you take this in? It's too big on me." Goodness! I'm falling out of my chair with laughter. This is not a problem I've ever had. Every time I grow out of a pair of pants I'm still astonished. I don't mind pulling up my pants for a while because they're too big. It sure beats trying to pull them out of places they've gotten into because they're too small. For now, I even like buying smaller bras but we will see when that changes.

I really shouldn't say too much. I'm still only inching my way down the weight ladder. The heady, early days of multiple pounds dropped in a week are a distant memory. Now I'm trying to not gain and be happy about it or to break even and be happy about that. I will not accept this new weight as my new permanent weight. According to the extremely evil WW computer program that decides what your goal weight should be, I'm only half way there. I'm surprised I even signed up after seeing the goal weight they chose for me. Weighing roughly the equivalent of both of my children, (4 and 10 year old stick children) sounds ridiculous to me. Of course it's only fair since it was mostly the two children that helped me put it on.

Despite what I say, I'm hoping to look damn good at the wedding. It may be a long time before I see some of these people again and I want them to have a new image of me in their heads that's closer to how I want to look and further from how I've looked in the past. To be honest, I don't think that my own self image has been keeping up with the weight loss.

I didn't realize that this was such a huge problem for so many people until Kathleen asked me to write about it. I just figured that I was the only unobservant one. I still have an outdated, dark haired image of my completely grey haired mother in my head. This makes it incredibly difficult to find her in a crowd.

For my research, I've been picking out people who I think I used to look like and who I look like now and asking my husband if I am close. He is very honest and gentle but says I am still way off base. I am going to have to look further into this image thing. It is a huge barrier to weight loss if you still see yourself as fat. If that is the case how will you notice when you put back on a few ice cream pounds?

For now I'm lining up the neighbor girl to help me with an "up do" for the wedding, digging out the dangly pearl earrings I keep in the back of the drawer, buying some Spankx undergarments in my new smaller size, polishing up my heels and trying to look my best for the wedding pictures that will be around for a lifetime. I'm hoping the photographer gets a good shot of the new better me with my two beautiful daughters in their gowns and my husband dressed up for the first time since our wedding.

The better I look in my new smaller size designer dress, the more credence it will give me when my cousin and sister-in-law and I play my favorite family party game; "Who wore what and why?!?" You can't exactly rip on the blue satin puff-a-lump when you look like a house-a-fire yourself.